A blog about bowed instruments and pickups, microphones, amplifiers and other gear for fiddles, violin, viola

23 May 2012

Fishman Aura Spectrum DI - part I

Here is the first part of my tests with the AURA spectrum DI.

A couple of years ago Fishman released the first preamp with the Aura technology inside. It enabled musicians playing acoustic instruments to improve on their amplified tone with the help of digital modeling.

The Aura Spectrum DI is the next generation of this technology in the shape of a versatile preamp and DI.

Take a look at the Fishman Aura Spectrum DI test part II
For this test I have used three different fiddles: My old German violin fitted with the Bradivarius pickup and my five string Liu Gong Ruo fitted with the Bradivarius pickup.

In part II I will try the Hengsheng fiddle with different pickups.

I have played through all of the images available for violin with all of the instruments and selected the ones I liked the best.
Some of the images sounds like they are the same which reduces the number of images available for violin. For instance image #1 under bluegrass sound exactly like the yamaha u87 image.

Because the Spectrum DI is first of all a tool for the stage I have done my sample recordings through the AER alpha plus amp and a RCF PA speaker.

Aura Spectrum with AER alpha plus

For these test I have left the equalizer and effects on the AER alpha at neutral settings.

Here is a sample of my german fiddle through image #1 recorded with these settings on the aura:

Here is the Liu Gong Ruo five string through image #1 recorded with these settings on the aura:

Aura Spectrum with RCF art 410a

Here is a sample of the German fiddle through image #1 recorded with these setting on the aura:

Here is the Liu Gong Ruo five string through image #1 recorded with these settings on the aura:

Here is a video clip of my band playing live.
I am playing trough the Aura bluegrass image #5.

The blend is set to 100% image, which might
be a little much for live use.

Sounds like it works pretty well... I like to keep a simple setup (right now just a Fishman Pro EQII and a DI box), but the Spectrum seems like it lends a really natural sound to the violin. Thanks for putting this up!